Sort of equivalent to Naismith's rule for bikes?

[Globalti]

I'd like to try to find a way of comparing my performance over the months and years and I'm sure there must be a way of adding miles to feet climbed to come up with an overall measure of effort, which can then be divided by time. For example on last night's Wednesday thrash my buddy and I rode 17.7 miles with 1030 feet of climbing in exactly one hour. A couple of months ago we did exactly the same route but took 65 minutes. so how can I create a factor of performance by which to compare these and other different rides?

 

[Rob3rt]

Ideally, you would use intensity factor (non temporal measure of ride intensity) or training stress score (you can calculate TSS/h), this would give you an idea of the intensity and the training load of a given ride. However without a power meter you can't do it, but you could read into TRIMP (assuming you have a HR monitor)? TRIMP scores are similar to training stress scores.

 

[Ben M]

Try some sort of crude watts/hour measure as you'd get on strava/mapmyride.

 

[VamP]

Try some sort of crude watts/hour measure guess as you'd get on strava/mapmyride.

FTFY

 

[Ben M]

FTFY

I did say that it was crude...

 

[Globalti]

Well that would work as long as I used the same calculation each time. How would I calculate a crude watts/hour rate?

 

[Ningishzidda]

Try to find a 25 mile circuit where it doesn't put you or any other roaduser in danger if you ride as fast as you can throughout the 25 miles without stopping.
It should be generally circular and finish close to the place it starts.

 

[Globalti]

Er.... I've a pretty good idea of my speeds over flat and hilly rides and whether I'm trying or pootling. What I need is a simple calculation that allows me to work out the effort required for distance PLUS climb, of which there is rather a lot here in Lancashire.

 

[VamP]

Well that would work as long as I used the same calculation each time. How would I calculate a crude watts/hour rate?

Go with Robert's suggestion. Something like Golden Cheetah will calculate your TRIMP score for you based on your HR rate. Crude but way better than the Strava guess. Alternatively you are looking at a power meter but that's a major investment compared to what you're trying to do.

With the TRIMP score you can use the Performance Manager to optimise your training/rest time.

 

[PK99]

I'd like to try to find a way of comparing my performance over the months and years and I'm sure there must be a way of adding miles to feet climbed to come up with an overall measure of effort, which can then be divided by time. For example on last night's Wednesday thrash my buddy and I rode 17.7 miles with 1030 feet of climbing in exactly one hour. A couple of months ago we did exactly the same route but took 65 minutes. so how can I create a factor of performance by which to compare these and other different rides?

Naismith's is a rough and ready guide to walking and even that has corrections fro grade of climb/decsent

Very difficult to do for cycling with out some horrendous maths taking into account gearing, wind resistance (both head wind and speed related on descents), bravery on descents (40mph down Box Hill or 15mph riding the brakes?) etc etc

I log all my rides on and Exel spreadsheet and for a while included ft climbed to give a ft/mile number for each ride. It did not take long to realise it was a pretty useless number
A route with a couple of thousand feet of climbing is very different if the 2000 feet comes as 4 Box Hills and flat the rest or all in gently rolling terrain.
And that is a ride with the same ascent and descent (ie home to home). Gaining or losing a net number makes the sums even more complex